The braggadocio echoed. Just minutes before Thursday’s tipoff of Game 6 at the Pepsi Center, the rapping voice of The Notorious B.I.G. was heard over the loudspeaker. The song? “Goin’ Back To Cali.”

This opening-round playoff series was supposed to be over Tuesday night. But, after the Nuggets won in Los Angeles in Game 5, they came out with a rapper’s swagger in the first quarter of Thursday’s Game 6. And now, they’re indeed goin’ back to Cali for Game 7 with the Lakers, after Denver’s 113-96, wire-to-wire victory Thursday night.

“I planned to play that as the last song,” said Cassidy Bednark, also known as D.J. Bedz, the Nuggets in-house D.J. “Then, I got slipped a note that said, ‘Big Al Harrington wants to hear “Goin’ Back To Cali.” ‘ Obviously, it was meant to be.”

Game 7, Denver’s first since 1994, will be Saturday night at the Staples Center. Denver trailed 3-1 and now has a chance to pull out a historic victory against the No. 3-seeded Lakers.

Before Thursday’s game, on the locker room dry-erase board, the first thing written was: “Hit first — hit hard. We must be the physical team.”

Hit first? Hit hard? The Nuggets came out like Mike Tyson in his heyday.

“There’s no way I thought what happened tonight was going to happen,” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “This game belongs to the players.”

Gallinari, who had struggled in other games this series, was fiery from the first touches.

“We knew we could win and make the series longer, but not a lot of people believed in our comeback to Game 7,” said Gallinari, who finished with 12 points with seven assists. “(The first quarter) was so much fun, especially with this crowd. That’s something we were thinking about and working on — the mental stuff, coming out aggressive like we did. We knew we had to do it, in order to win the game.”

Lawson won Denver this game. He was Kobe-like, scoring every imaginable way and doing so with some unflappable swagger. Lawson had made just two 3-pointers in the first five games — but he was 5-for-6 from 3 on Thursday. He scored 15.4 points per game going into game 6. He scored a game-high 32. And he had six assists.

“The basket looked big,” Lawson said.

Lawson said that he flew out his personal shooting coach, Ivory Manning, from Las Vegas to Denver on Wednesday night. The two worked out Wednesday night and Thursday during the day, working on Lawson’s arc. Seemed to work out for the guy.

“My confidence was just strong,” Lawson said.

There was a pall over the Nuggets before the game with the news that the home of backup center Chris Andersen had been searched by sheriff’s deputies, as part as an investigation from the department of Internet Crimes Against Children. Andersen’s agent, Mark Bryant, told The Denver Post, “I am confident it will be shown that he did nothing wrong.” Andersen will be away from the Nuggets indefinitely.

Kobe Bryant, the valiant Lakers guard, played sick. He had gastroenteritis, missed the team’s morning shootaround and was vomiting during the day with stomach pain. But he played hard and was making some shots that were, well, sick. But nobody else on LA was.

The Nuggets led 54-45 at the half, and scored the first nine points of the third quarter. Bryant was 7-for-13 at the half and the rest of his team was 10-for-28. Kobe finished with 31 points.

One of the main keys to the game was Denver’s ability to stymie both Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol from playing like Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol. After two quarters, the all-star and former all-star were both just 1-for-5. Denver threw a bevy of bigs at the two 7-footers and guys such as Al Harrington and Timofey Mozgov played well, making each possession difficult. Game 5 star JaVale McGee blocked and altered some shots too, thrilling the crowd.

For the game, Bynum had just 11 points and Gasol had only three.

In the third quarter, Faried attempted a leaping dunk when Bryant hammered him in midair. The fans went nuts. Faried was on the floor for about a minute, and Bryant was called for a flagrant-one. The score was 57-45 Nuggets at the time. Faried calmly hit both free throws and the Nuggets went on a 33-11 run to close out the quarter, fueled by Faried, and sent this series back to Cali.

Benjamin Hochman was a sports columnist for The Denver Post until August 2015 before leaving for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his hometown newspaper. Hochman previously worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. Hochman wrote the Katrina-themed book “Fourth and New Orleans,” published in 2007.

Rockies all-star shortstop crushed his 100th career homer against the Orioles Friday night at Coors Field. The blast was a mammoth shot that had some history behind it as Story is now the fasted shortstop on MLB history to 100 home runs.